In recent years, in order to achieve high breakdown voltage, low loss, and utilization of semiconductor devices under a high temperature environment, silicon carbide has begun to be adopted as a material for a semiconductor device. Silicon carbide is a wide band gap semiconductor having a band gap larger than that of silicon, which has been conventionally widely used as a material for semiconductor devices. Hence, by adopting silicon carbide as a material for a semiconductor device, the semiconductor device can have a high breakdown voltage, reduced on-resistance, and the like. Further, the semiconductor device thus adopting silicon carbide as its material has characteristics less deteriorated even under a high temperature environment than those of a semiconductor device adopting silicon as its material, advantageously.
A silicon carbide substrate is prepared by, for example, cutting a silicon carbide single crystal produced by a sublimation method and then chamfering a side surface portion thereof. For example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2010-64918 (Patent Document 1) describes that a silicon carbide epitaxial layer is formed on a silicon carbide single crystal wafer with a chamfered side surface portion of the silicon carbide substrate.